We hear about green energyfor green technologyfor a world adapted to the new data arising from climate crisis. How ready is she or how strong is her will? The European Union, to meet the demands of a new world? A world that must balance between the effects of climate change and global competition. And the truth is that the European Union is moving slowly, both at the level of adaptation to the new data, and at the level of competition against the other great powers.

So, according to the latest figures, the EU is no longer ahead in the “race” of green technology. Now, China has taken the lead, creating serious shocks in the “green” European market.

The “key”, it seems, is the purchase of solar panels and wind turbines. China is a great ally of Europe, but this seems to be challenged to a certain extent as competition intensifies.

As it states Politicoon Tuesday, the competition chief Margrethe Vestagerunder the EU’s new foreign subsidy regulation, is launching an investigation into China’s fast-growing and increasingly dominant wind sector.

THE Europe was once a leader in renewable energy, but China’s rapid growth since 2018 has caused billions in losses for top wind power players, including Denmark’s Vestas and German-owned Siemens Gamesaforcing them to drastically cut costs.

The EU wants to avoid a mistake it made last decade, when China’s solar panel makers wiped out their European competitors.

Years of inaction in the EU’s internal industrial policy — combined with an open-door policy on green technology — have led to an influx of Chinese solar panels into the EU market, despite concerns about materials coming from the western province of Xinjiang, where the United Nations has expose human rights violations against the Uighur community.

Then comes the next big slap in the face: electric vehicles. Ignoring the European Commission’s investigation into the government subsidies behind these Chinese-made electric vehicles, China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao assured Chinese EV executives during their visit to Paris on Monday that their gains in the market will be big.

“The rapid growth of Chinese EV companies does not depend on competitive advantage thanks to subsidies, but on continuous technological innovation, integrated industrial and supply chains, and full market competition,” Wang said at a meeting with the bosses of EV.

A bigger concern for the EU is its effort Beijing to shore up its economic partnership with Russia as Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine deepens its isolation from the West.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking on Tuesday with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrovsaid both countries will “seek more active points of convergence” and “join hands to ensure stability for global industrial and supply chains.”

This is in direct conflict with the EU’s geopolitical game.

In a speech at Princeton, Vestager is expected to tout the idea of ​​wider use of so-called credibility assessments. Those criteria, the EU’s competition chief is expected to say, should include cyber security, data security, labor rights and environmental footprint.

For now, the China has captured more than half of the world market in wind turbines.

According to one estimate, over four years, China’s market share in terms of global installations increased from 37 percent to more than 55 percent in 2022.

In contrast, European companies, whose share fell from 55% to 42% in the same period.

There is a “very real risk that the expansion of wind power will happen in China, not in Europe,” Brussels-based trade group WindEurope said in a statement to POLITICO.

That’s because of China’s government subsidies, experts say. “The Chinese wind farm is a beneficiary of direct and indirect subsidies throughout the value chain,” said Joseph Webstersenior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.

Beijing, provincial and local governments, “rich subsidies to Chinese industrial players, including directly in the wind industry but also in complementary sectors such as steel and shipbuilding” are necessary to install wind turbines, Webster added.

There are indications that some wind power developers and other companies operating in the EU’s internal market could benefit from foreign subsidies that gave them an unfair advantage over their competitors.

China also hit back ahead of Vestager’s speech, calling the anti-subsidy probes “economic coercion” – a charge the EU has used against Beijing in the past.

THE Wang Lutonghead of the European Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told X: “We urge the EU not to use the regulation on foreign subsidies as a tool of protectionism and economic coercion, and to stop interfering with normal business operation.”